ASUS, battling for the portable computing market continues to set the standard in Android tablets. Samsung, Acer and now even Google are all amongst ASUS’s top competitors, all fighting to get tablets into consumers hands.

The latest Transformer, the Infinity, will be ASUS’s top of the line model when it’s released on July 16 in the US. With it’s brilliantly clear and bright Super IPS+ display capable of 1920x 1200 resolution, the fastest Tegra 3 chipset yet and a brand new 8-megapixel camera, the Infinity is shooting to be the new King of Android tablets. The new weapon of choice for road-warriors around the world.

As with all Transformer models the Infinity can be purchased with its utilitarian docking keyboard. Converting the Infinity into a laptop with dimensions that would make an Ultrabook envious. On it’s own the Infinity is one of the sleekest Android tablets on the market, with the keyboard attached it becomes the most powerful Android notebook available.

Display resolution is the new battlefront for tablets and the highlight of the Infinity. The 1920 × 1200 resolution full HD panel brings an incredible visual experience to the 10” tablet. Its super-bright 600nits Super IPS+ design even makes it suitable for outdoor use. Covered in a protective layer of Corning’s latest Gorilla Glass the Infinity will be as tough as it is good looking.

There are currently three ultra high resolution tablets on the market, The latest IPad, ASUS Infinity and the Acer A700. All use the extra resolution to increase the detail of text and images on the screen, they don’t shrink your icons and text to unreadable levels. If text on your screen was a quarter of an inch high it will still be that size but now each letter will be made of over 60% more pixels. This allows the edges of the text to be smoother, providing jaggy free text and extremely smooth and detailed images.

The Acer A700 tablet also uses the Tegra 3 chipset with similar specifications to the Infinity at $100 less the Acer offers great value. On the downside the screen is not as bright as the Infinity’s and there is no keyboard option.

Maintaining the previous generations dimensions, 263mm x 180.8mm x 8.5mm, ASUS has managed to shoe horn a faster processor and the new display into the same sleek aluminium case. Owners of existing Transformer models can re-use their docking keyboard with the Infinity. Weighing just 598grams the Infinity packs heavy duty power into a light weight body.

From the ASUS Infinity website “As avid consumers of multimedia, we turned the Transformer Pad Infinity into a mobile home theater. With a 1920 × 1200 resolution Full HD screen, SonicMaster audio technology, Super IPS+ Panel and the most powerful NVIDIA® Tegra® 3 Quad-core CPU running @1.6 GHz, the Transformer Pad Infinity is everything you need to enjoy 1080p HD video playback while sharing with your friends on the go.”

The 8MP rear auto-focus camera with LED flash clearly captures photos while the 2MP front camera allows for easy video-chat. The new 8MP rear camera also includes an F/2.2 large aperture lens and back-light CMOS for great shooting in low light conditions. The TF700T supports 802.11 g/b/n wireless protocol, Bluetooth v3.0 and A2DP.

Office Depot in the US has jumped the gun and is listing the 32GB TF700T Infinity as in-stock, for $499 USD. The Infinity is due to ship July 16 in the US, two model will eventually be available with other model having 64GB of flash storage and sell for $599.

The Australian release date is still undecided, an ASUS spokesperson was recently quoted as saying “The release date is very up in the air at the moment.” August is now seen as the earliest possible release date. The price also seems to be rising, $999 is now rumored to be the price for the 64GB model which will be the only one released in Australia. Not great news for Australian Transformer fans, shame ASUS shame.

Android tablets are about to be dragged into the future, and its a 1080p hi-def future. ASUS has plenty of competition on its hands though. From Acer’s HD A700 to Google’s new Nexus there is a tablet for everyone. Is the Infinity the new King of Android tablets? Only the numbers will tell, once it goes on sale.

Reference: ASUS Infinity
Related Article: The War of the Transforming Devices

ASUS Transformer Infinity TF700T Speccification

• Operation System: Android™ (1) 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS)
• CPU: Qualcomm® MSM 8260A Snapdragon™ S4 Krait Dual-core 1.5Ghz CPU(3G ) or NVIDIA® Tegra® 3 Quad-core T33@ 1.6GHz (WIFI)
• Size/Weight: 263 × 180.8 × 8.5mm, 598g
• Color: Amethyst Gray, Champagne Gold
• Memory: DDR3L 1GB / Storage: 32/64GB 8GB of ASUS WebStorage for life
• Connectivity: 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth v3.0, A2DP
• Display: 10.1″ WUXGA Full HD (1920 × 1200) LED Backlit screen with 10-finger multi-touch, Super IPS+ display with 600 nits brightness
• Camera: Rear 8MP Auto-focus w/LED Flash, F/2.2 Aperture, 1080p video recording, Front 2MP for video conferencing
• Interface: 2-in-1 Audio Jack (Head Phone / Mic-in) /1 × Micro-D HDMI 1.4a port / 1 × microSD Card Slot /Dual microphone / 1 × Stereo Speaker
• Battery: Pad only: 25Wh – 9.5 hours*, Pad + Dock: 25Wh+ 19.5Wh – 14 hours*
• GPS: Supported
• Sensor: G-Sensor, Light Sensor, Gyroscope, E-compass